Last weekend’s ALMS event was a fantastic race, unfortunately the way in which they decided to broadcast the action didn’t meet the expectations of many fans. As you may know the entire event aired over an internet stream, via espn3.com, with a short recap show the following day on ABC.

The stream itself was good, if you were able to access the site to begin with and your internet was up to the task, and the recap show was a nice addition, assuming you weren’t on the west coast and thus able to view the ABC special.

Personally I think it’s wonderful that they were able to find a way to broadcast the entire 12 hour race, that’s a huge positive. I’m just not sure that everyone wants to view a race that long from their computer. Best case scenario is to split coverage between television and internet for each endurance event. Simply using the internet to fill-in whenever they need to break coverage on the television network.

But, I must admit that there is definitely a lot of potential that can be untapped by incorporating the internet as a new medium. More specifically what I would like to see is something that puts each viewer in control of the broadcast. In other words give us the ability to choose which camera we want to view, whether it is an in-car cam or cameras dedicated to certain classes. Let us select and personalize the event, giving fans an unprecedented way to follow their favorite teams or category. The technology to make this happen is already available as other sporting events have incorporated such functionality in the past. Of course nothing is official on that, at this point it’s merely a personal wish.